NPR: Juan Williams’ Opinions on FOX Just Too Far Right for Its Taste

NPR’s Vice President of News, Ellen Weiss, has asked Juan Williams to ask that Fox remove his NPR identification whenever he is on The O’Reilly Factor. reports NPR ombudsman Alicia C. Shepard, even though NPR recognizes that Williams is a news analyst and is paid to voice opinions.

It seems that NPR listeners object to Williams opinions and want him off NPR.

The controversy started when Williams explained that Vice President Joe Biden could be a liability for President Obama. But so could his wife, Michelle, according to Weiss. Here is what was said on air:

“Michelle Obama, you know, she’s got this Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going,” said Williams. “If she starts talking, as Mary Katharine [Ham, a conservative blogger] is suggesting, her instinct is to start with this blame America, you know, I’m the victim. If that stuff starts coming out, people will go bananas and she’ll go from being the new Jackie O to being something of an albatross.”

O’Reilly responded: “She’s not going to do that.”

The remarks got him in hot water with management at NPR, as Shepard reports:

“Juan Williams is a contributor to NPR programs as a news analyst,” said Ron Elving, NPR’s Washington editor. “What he says on NPR is the product of a journalistic process that includes editors. What he says when he is not on our air is not within our control. But we recognize that what he says elsewhere reflects on NPR, and we have discussed that fact with him specifically in regard to his remarks on Fox News regarding Michelle Obama.”

About Jeff Pijanowski

I spent about 30 years as a newspaper editor, mostly at Newsday on Long Island, where I served in various positions ranging from copy editor to a three-year stint as a news editor. I also spent time as the wire editor at the Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise, an assistant city editor at the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph and as the editor-in-chief at Central Penn Business Journal. I am a graduate of two (yes, two) buyouts from two different news organizations. After my second buyout, I decided to change professions, and now I am a senior manager at a nonprofit organization. But I still have a keen interest in politics and the media, and I like to keep in touch with my inner-journalist self.